A very smol CMS template: public site plus a password-protected /admin, where
one editor fills in a few forms and uploads images from their phone. Built to be
cloned as the starting point for small business sites.
- Stack: Hono on a single Netlify Function, server-rendered JSX, htmx in the admin, Pico CSS, no frontend build
- Content: sections and fields defined in JSON; admin forms and validation are generated from it
- Storage: Netlify Blobs, with separate content for previews and production
- Images: Cloudinary; photos are resized on the device and uploaded directly, with drag and drop, progress and retry
- Admin: mobile-first, single password with change and reset, unsaved change protection
- Site: responsive layout, lightbox gallery, Netlify Forms contact form, inferred SEO tags, sitemap and robots
Requires Node 24 (see .nvmrc), the Netlify CLI (npm i -g netlify-cli) and a
free Cloudinary account for uploads.
git clone https://github.com/blakesimpson-dev/smol-cms.git
cd smol-cms
npm install
cp .env.example .env # admin password, session secret, Cloudinary keys
npm run dev # http://localhost:8888, admin at /adminTo deploy, create a Netlify site from the repo, set the variables from
.env.example, and enable Forms → form detection.
To start a new site from the template, clone it into a new repo and keep this
one as a remote (git remote rename origin template), so updates can be pulled
with git pull template main. Site-specific content lives in src/content/.
| Script | Purpose |
|---|---|
npm run dev |
Netlify dev server on :8888 |
npm run preview |
Production build served on :8899 |
npm run build |
Full Netlify build, locally |
npm test |
Unit tests (node:test) |
npm run lint / typecheck |
ESLint (Google TypeScript style) / tsc |
npm run format / format:check |
Prettier |
npm run check |
All of the above, except dev and preview |
A forgotten admin password is reset by deleting the stored one, so
ADMIN_PASSWORD applies again: netlify blobs:delete content admin-auth.
The code is MIT, see LICENSE. Bundled third-party files keep their own licences: htmx (Zero-Clause BSD), Pico CSS (MIT), the Poppins font (SIL Open Font License) and the default photos (Unsplash License).